Dan Bejar, guitarist and vocalist from The New Pornographers, presents a brand new album under his Destroyer moniker titled ‘Poison Season’, the follow up to 2011’s ‘Kaputt’.
‘Poison Season’ surveys four “Wracked” characters throughout the album’s narrative, Jesus, Jacob, Judy and Jack, via Springsteen and Bowie-esque “street rock”. Like the other DB, Mr. Bejar has long displayed a chameleonic instinct for change while maintaining a unified aesthetic (rather than just pinballing between reference points). His latest incarnation often appears to take sonic cues from a distinctly British (usually Scottish, to be precise) strain of sophisti-pop: you might hear traces of Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout, Orange Juice, or The Blow Monkeys. These songs merge a casual literary brilliance with intense melodic verve, nimble arrangements, and a certain blue-eyed soul sadness.